Sunday, January 20, 2013

Ashtangarabbits, shy persons, and... powdermilk biscuits (?)

Earlier today, I read this article in the New Yorker about a bunch of task websites that have sprung up in the past few years. These sites allow busy people (like you, for instance) or people who lack the will-power to get things done to hire task-doers to either get these things done on their behalf, or to motivate and prod them to do these things; for instance, if you need a little help getting motivated to do your taxes, you can hire somebody to sit with you while you do your taxes (and make you do them, if necessary). One such website is https://www.taskrabbit.com/ As the name suggests, if you need to get things done in a jiffy (or need help getting motivated to get them done), you can post a task request on this website, and a Task Rabbit in your area will respond with a bid (which is usually a fairly reasonable price). If you accept the bid, you will then pay for the service/s rendered upon completion of the service. Here's a video description of how TaskRabbit works:


Pretty cool, don't you think? But what has any of this to do with yoga? you may ask. Well, I have been thinking that there must be yogis out there who would like to start a regular practice, but who, for whatever reason (lack of motivation to practice by themselves, too shy to go to a studio or shala, etc.) have not been able to do so. This being the case, maybe there is a market for Yogarabbits (or even Ashtangarabbits); these are people who will, for a fee, go to the aspiring yogi's home at a certain fixed time of the day (or night) and either practice together with the yogi, or otherwise motivate the yogi to practice in their presence ("You do!")... I mean, seriously, why not? If you can pay somebody to sit around and make sure you do your taxes, why not pay somebody to be around to make sure you do your practice?

Hmm... I'm actually toying with this idea of moonlighting as an Ashtangarabbit now... I think this might be a good thing to do for somebody like me who doesn't feel ready to teach, but who thinks that he may yet have something to offer the Ashtanga community. But I don't know if there are enough aspiring Ashtangis around where I am to warrant putting myself out there like that. But I can't help thinking about this, nonetheless.

Well, maybe if you live in a bigger urban center where there is a bigger Ashtanga community, you might want to think about becoming an Ashtangarabbit, and, in so doing, give shy persons the strength they need to get up and do what needs to be done (gee, where did this line come from...?). Just a thought.

P.S. Well, I don't want to be accused of plagiarism, so I guess I better come clean about where that shy persons line came from. Have a look at the video below, especially 0:14-0:17. Yeah, now you know I'm a Prairie Home Companion fan...


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